The best way to start an argument is to try to avoid one. Thus, “Don’t take this the wrong way … ” is all it should take.
So let’s get our Fox World Series preview out of the way then move on, as if it’s not likely that Fox will has put sudden repairs to its baseball coverage in order to change very bad to even a little better.
And so …
The pre- and postgame shows, whether in studio or wasting space in the ballparks, will continue to be colossal wastes of money, time and plans.
David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez, both synonymous with what has laid MLB low, have specialized in forced belly laughs that are transparent, childish and annoying. Derek Jeter seems predicated on predictable, blank-look dreariness. Apparently, Fox execs didn’t anticipate from Jeter what baseball fans did.
The telecasts will be larded with what TV now does to baseball: excessive cutaways from the field for anything else. Look-what-we-can-do distractions will include needless in-game interviews, crowd shots of overly wrought women, slow-motion closeup replays of any player seen hollering “F–k!”
Graphics listing pitchers’ percentile inclination to throw two-seamers vs. four-seamers, as the three-seamer will debut next season. There will be 96-mph pitches identified as “sinkers” thrown head-high. Perhaps graphics will alert us to when Shohei Ohtani is next due to bat.
The two voices will be distinguishable as Joe Davis deals in excitable hype, unless checked-swing bloop singles genuinely cause him uncontrolled and sudden hysteria.
Davis boothmate John “Spin Rate” Smoltz is a historic presence, as no one in the history of sustained television employment has done more to drive viewers to the Land of What Else Is On? As an every-pitch examiner, he is Dr. Kevorkian.
That Fox finds Smoltz irreplaceable and/or valuable says almost as much as Fox paying Tom Brady $375 million for what so quickly struck all as a preposterous waste of money, preparation and blind addiction to celebrity.
Bettor believe gambling references are inescapable
They gave it a good try. They tried to tell us that sports have gone to hell in a money bag, that if you don’t have a bet you can’t possibly be a sports fan. They came close, but at least they tried.
Chris Cotter, former ESPN regular, and Mark Herzlich, ex-Giants’ LB, were calling Saturday’s Virginia-Clemson on the ACC Network when Clemson, with a 41-25 lead and 1:54 left, threw deep for a TD to make it 48-25.
Of course, with the game already won, this carried a run-it-up stench that too often accompanies Clemson wins under Dabo Sweeney, a head coach who often cites his deep religious convictions — when not stomping already-conquered opponents.
Herzlich: “That TD was very important to some people out there.”
Cotter: “I was gonna say the same thing. And if you don’t know what we mean, that’s fine.”
Clemson was a 20.5-point favorite. That late TD covered the spread and the Over/Under, which was 57.5. Cotter and Herzlich’s near-take on matters was a modern form of honesty to meet with the modern form of audience participation that, by commercial design, must or should include a bet or two.
Ah, but with 15 seconds left, UVa scored on a 65-yard pass play. Final score: 48-31. Clemson did not cover the spread. And if you don’t know what we mean, that’s fine.
The TV money-driven insanity that pervades, possesses and should have by now turned college presidents into Fifth Amendment capos, has given us Friday night’s Bi-Coastal Big Ten Game of the Week: Rutgers of New Jersey vs. USC of California.
That game is scheduled to start at 11 p.m. ET on Fox after the Yankees at Dodgers telecast.
This past Saturday, Rutgers lost at home to UCLA.
Fernando Velenzuela, dead at 63. Can’t forget the game or how it prematurely disappeared: Friday night, Sept. 6, 1985. Mets 2, at Dodgers 0 in 13 — no Rob Manfred automatic runners at second to soil it.
Doc Gooden went nine, allowed five hits, no walks, struck out 10. Valenzuela went 11, allowing six hits — two by Gooden! Must-see late night/early morning TV.
At 1 a.m., the game, televised here by Chuck Dolan’s SportsChannel, went dark, never to return. SC was programmed to be unplugged at 1 a.m. and, because it was an early morning weekend finish, there was no one to answer the phone to at least try to restore the game.
In my Sunday column, filed before Notre Dame-Georgia Tech on ESPN, I joked that a wise guy tipped me off to the key to the Jets’ game: “The defense has to get off the field.”
Saturday, near the top of the game, analyst Louis Riddick was serious when he said a key to the game was for “Notre Dame to keep this Tech offense off the field.”
Then again, why would a running back “cut” when he can just “stick a foot in the ground”?
Can’t spell team-first without M, E
For years, Mets and Yanks broadcasters rationalized Robinson Cano’s lazy baserunning with “he’s great in the clubhouse” where he must’ve held lectures, “Don’t Play As I Do.”
Similar nonsense was heard during the final ALCS game when Brian Anderson, Jeff Francoeur and Ron Darling of TBS told New York fans what they knew to be untrue: Giancarlo Stanton is a cherished, team-first presence and leader.
Stanton has long been a home run-or-strikeout minimalist. Twice he was disabled for long stretches when his failure to run to first led to too-late awkward slides into second.
And I guess we were supposed to forget the Yanks’ best-of-one, wild-card loss in Boston when he posed a “home run” into an off-the-wall single.
Yeah, Stanton has always been a team guy — often the other team.
Meanwhile, Juan Soto continues to risk self-inflicted infamy by posing at the plate on HRs. Think “It Is What It Is” Aaron Boone has demanded that Soto (Stanton, Alex Verdugo. Gleyber Torres) cut it out in the best interests of winning? Neither do I.
Reader Robert H. McNeil suggests that there are now two Monday night football games, one on ESPN, the other on ABC/ESPN, so that ESPN BET can cash in extra big on suckers betting two-team parlays. …
Smoke Begats Fire: That gambling investigation, begun in March, of three dubious results in Temple basketball games is growing closer to exploding. This week, Hysier Miller, a transfer guard from Temple to Virginia Tech, was dropped by the Hokies amid that investigation. …
Sideline Report of the Week: Near the top of Vikings-Lions on Fox, Pam Ollver spoke of the “anticipated absence” of Detroit’s star defensive lineman Aidan Hutchinson. Anticipated absence? He was carted off the game before with a broken leg!
